Mycobacterial toxin MazF-mt6 inhibits translation through cleavage of 23S rRNA at the ribosomal A site.

ABSTRACT: The Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome contains an unusually high number of toxin-antitoxin modules, some of which have been suggested to play a role in the establishment and maintenance of latent tuberculosis. Nine of these toxin-antitoxin loci belong to the mazEF family, encoding the intracellular toxin MazF and its antitoxin inhibitor MazE. Nearly every MazF ortholog recognizes a unique three- or five-base RNA sequence and cleaves mRNA. As a result, these toxins selectively target a subset of the transcriptome for degradation and are known as "mRNA interferases." Here we demonstrate that a MazF family member from M. tuberculosis, MazF-mt6, has an additional role--inhibiting translation through targeted cleavage of 23S rRNA in the evolutionarily conserved helix/loop 70. We first determine

SUBMITTER: Schifano JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3666664 | biostudies-literature | 2013 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature